Incendiary Advice

In a heartfelt plea for Al Gore to consider a 2008 presidential bid, MaryScott O'Connor sells it like only she can. While the entire diary is great, one part just hit me like a big Greyhound doing 80.

It speaks to exactly where I am , no matter where I am: work, home, sleeping, watching tv, trying to enjoy my previously scheduled life. The weight of it tugs at my shoulders, causing me to nearly slump over; it taints good times and renders bad times completely hopeless:

"In my darkest hours of reflection on the state of the world and, specifically, my own country, I often lean dangerously close to yearning for and envy of the widespread ignorance of its own government's actions that is endemic in the general population of the United States of America.

"Oh, how I long for ignorance," I sigh. "Ignorance must truly be bliss - for the agonisingly acute degree of being informed in which I now regularly exist is surely the opposite of bliss."

That desire to unring the bell, to not know today what you didn't know yesterday, is insidious. It seduces with promises of instant pain relief, blind comfort in mindless daily activity, immediate mental opiate.

"Just stop," it whispers. "Stop thinking. Stop worrying. Let. it. go. Don't worry, someone else will worry about it for you."

Like a mugger obscured by trees, behind that false comfort lies something else, just waiting to spring: guilt.

Once you know what's really happening to the country, it's impossible and reprehensible to shrug and walk away. That's what brought us to this precipice in the first place.


In the next few days, I intend to explore what is and what should never be - but likely will be - should Alito, and potentially a subsequent conservative SCOTUS nominee, be confirmed.

Can't unring the bell. Time to confront the ugly possibilities and find a plan.